A Boston College sports blog capturing the highs and lows of being a BC fan living 1,000 miles from Chestnut Hill.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Ranking the most critical players

When Braxton Miller went down earlier in the week, I tweeted about BC's good fortune in missing the injury bug this summer. Of course this sort of mocking of the football gods will come back to bite me (and BC) and leave the roster decimated. But of all these hypothetical injuries which one would be the most serious? For example a injury to Tyler Murphy would be a bigger deal than an injury to Myles Willis. Not because Murphy is a better player, but because Willis' position is one of the few where we have depth. It is all subjective but here is my ranking of the most critical players for the 2014 season. Leave your thoughts or rebuttals below.

1. Tyler Murphy. Although he has never thrown a pass for BC, he's the starting QB in a QB dependent system and the only QB on the roster with any experience. If he gets hurt, we are forced to rollout a true, raw freshman.2. Shakim Phillips. Assuming Swigert is not going to be 100% to start the season, Phillips might be our only experienced WR. We are going to run a lot, but we need a capable WR to be a threat or else we will face stacked defenses all season.3. Steven Daniels. The fact that he is in a position battle may indicate that we are deeper at LB than expected, but Daniels remains the most experienced and productive linebacker in a linebacker dependent system.4. Myles Willis. Willis won't approach Andre Williams' carries, but he is our most explosive offensive player. I expect him to be a critical part of the passing offense too.5. Andy Gallik. Most of our OLine could and have played multiple positions on the offensive line. The nuances of Center are a little more tricky, making Gallik harder to replace. He's also expected to be our best OLineman too.